Who is Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuela’s interim president after Maduro’s capture?

The US has claimed to have attacked Venezuela and captured President Nicolas Maduro, throwing the country into political chaos. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

With President Nicolas Maduro in US’s custody after his dramatic capture on Saturday, Venezuela’s top court has ordered Vice President Delcy Rodriguez to take over as interim president.

Rodriguez served as Maduro’s vice president since 2018 and was next in line after Maduro. However, her appointment is also expected to trigger a power struggle with opposition leader Maria Corina Machado,  who recently won the Nobel Prize and is widely believed to secure a landslide victory in any free and fair election.

Serving as a vice president to Nicolas Maduro since 2018, Delcy Rodriguez ran much of the country’s oil-based economy and overseeing its feared intelligence service. Rodriguez is a lawyer trained in Britain and France and has long represented the Chavez revolution abroad.

US President Donald Trump said Delcy Rodríguez had already been sworn in as Venezuela’s president under the constitution. However, state television showed no swearing-in ceremony.

As per a report by the Associated Press, during her televised address, a ticker still called her the vice president. She gave no sign of working with the US and did not reply to requests for comment. She called the US action illegal.

“This is an atrocity that violates international law,” she said, adding that those who backed the attack would ‘pay’.

Earlier in the day, Rodriguez demanded in audio played on Venezuelan state TV that the US provide “proof of life” for Maduro and his wife after President Donald Trump said the pair had been captured by the US military operation.

“We demand that President Donald Trump’s government provide immediate proof of life for President Maduro and the First Lady,” Rodriguez said, according to Reuters.

Both of Rodriguez and Machado’s current locations remain unknown. Reports claim Rodriguez is currently in Russia, but Moscow has denied this. Four sources familiar with her movements told Reuters that the information was correct, even as Russia’s foreign ministry dismissed the report as ‘fake’.

Meanwhile, Machado’s whereabouts are under speculation after she left Norway in mid-December following the Nobel Prize ceremony.